Dennis Swanson (born February 12, 1938
) is an American retired television executive. In a decades-long career in the industry, he worked for all of the
Big Four television networks
In the United States, there are three major traditional commercial broadcast television networks — CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System), NBC (National Broadcasting Company), and ABC (American Broadcasting Company) — that due to their longev ...
, including positions in their
owned-and-operated station
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
groups, and a tenure as president of
ABC Sports
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
. He helped to create ''
The Oprah Winfrey Show
''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', often referred to as ''The Oprah Show'' or simply ''Oprah'', is an American daytime broadcast syndication, syndicated talk show that aired nationally for 25 seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, in Chicag ...
'', and it was his suggestion that led to the Winter Olympics being staged two years after each Summer Olympics.
Early life
After attending high school in
Springfield, Illinois
Springfield is the capital of the U.S. state of Illinois and the county seat and largest city of Sangamon County. The city's population was 114,394 at the 2020 census, which makes it the state's seventh most-populous city, the second largest o ...
,
Swanson attended the
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...
, where he was a student manager for the school's
men's basketball team and also worked at WILL
radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...
and
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
, the university's broadcasting stations. College came at a tough time for Swanson's family; his father was dying, and he won a $500 scholarship for a chemical engineering major, quietly switching to journalism. He waited tables at the
Pi Phi sorority house in exchange for meals. As a result of being in the
Naval ROTC
The Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) program is a college-based, commissioned officer training program of the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps.
Origins
A pilot Naval Reserve unit was established in September 192 ...
, Swanson was commissioned and promoted to the rank of captain in the
Marines
Marines, or naval infantry, are typically a military force trained to operate in littoral zones in support of naval operations. Historically, tasks undertaken by marines have included helping maintain discipline and order aboard the ship (refle ...
. He then returned to Illinois and earned a master's degree in communication and political science.
Career
Early career
Swanson's broadcasting career began in 1965 as a sports reporter for
WMT radio in
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Cedar Rapids () is the second-largest city in Iowa, United States and is the county seat of Linn County, Iowa, Linn County. The city lies on both banks of the Cedar River (Iowa River), Cedar River, north of Iowa City, Iowa, Iowa City and north ...
. He took his first Chicago job in 1966 as news producer for
WGN radio
WGN (720 Hertz, kHz) is a commercial radio, commercial AM radio, AM radio station in Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, with radio studio, studios on the 18th floor of 303 East Wacker Drive in the Chicago Loop. WGN has a talk radio, news/talk format, ...
and
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
, becoming an assignment editor for the Chicago bureau of
NBC News
NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...
in 1968. Three years later, he moved to NBC's local stations in Chicago,
WMAQ radio and
television
Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...
, as a sportscaster and producer; after deciding he did not like on-camera work, he departed that position in 1974 to work for the short-lived
Television News Inc.
Television News Inc. (TVN) was an American syndicated news service, providing daily feeds of newsfilm to subscribing television stations in the United States and Canada between 1973 and 1975. Majority-owned by the Coors Brewing Company of Gold ...
(TVN) service.
ABC local stations
After TVN folded, Swanson turned down a position as sportscaster at
WJBK
WJBK (channel 2) is a television station in Detroit, Michigan
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government o ...
in
Detroit
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...
to work as the executive producer of the local newscasts at
KABC-TV
KABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains stud ...
in Los Angeles. In 1977, Swanson was promoted to news director.
That same year, a series of reports on police shootings won the station a
George Foster Peabody Award
The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Peabody, honor the most powerful, enlightening, and invigorating stories in television, radio, and ...
.
Swanson was named station manager of KABC in 1981.
Swanson then was promoted to general manager of ABC's Chicago station,
WLS-TV
WLS-TV (channel 7) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios on North State S ...
, in 1983, when its general manager resigned.
One of the challenges awaiting Swanson at WLS was filling the vacancy on the station's 6 pm newscast resulting from the death of
Fahey Flynn
Fahey Flynn (August 6, 1916 – August 8, 1983) was a radio and television newscaster who spent the majority of his career in Chicago. Robert Feder of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' described him as "an avuncular Irishman with a jaunty bow tie nda twi ...
.
Another was to find a new host for its morning talk show, ''A.M. Chicago'', which had been losing in its time slot to ''
The Phil Donahue Show
''The Phil Donahue Show'', also known as ''Donahue'', is an American television talk show hosted by Phil Donahue that ran for 26 years on national television. Its run was preceded by three years of local broadcast on WLWD in Dayton, Ohio, and i ...
''.
Swanson filled the void by hiring
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', br ...
, who had been hosting a talk show at
WJZ-TV
WJZ-TV (channel 13) is a television station in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division, and maintains studios and offices on Televi ...
in
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
.
Winfrey immediately improved ratings over her predecessor, crediting Swanson for the "bold" selection for the time of a Black woman as host.
By February 1985, Winfrey was pulling double the ratings of ''Donahue'';
it was Swanson who suggested that
Roger King of
King World Productions
King World Productions, Inc. (also known as King World Entertainment, King World Enterprises, or simply King World) was a production company and syndicator of television programming in the United States independently established in 1964 until acq ...
meet Oprah, which led to her own syndicated talk show. ''
The Oprah Winfrey Show
''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', often referred to as ''The Oprah Show'' or simply ''Oprah'', is an American daytime broadcast syndication, syndicated talk show that aired nationally for 25 seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, in Chicag ...
'', which the ABC owned-and-operated stations carried at launch, grew into one of television's most successful syndicated programs; in 2005, ''The New York Times'' described the move as "worth billions of dollars for ABC's stations". When Winfrey was honored with the
Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the
75th Golden Globe Awards
The 75th Golden Globe Awards honored film and American television of 2017, and was broadcast live on January 7, 2018, from The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California beginning at 5:00 p.m. PST / 8:00 p.m. EST by NBC. This Golden ...
in 2018, Swanson was the first person she thanked, for taking "a chance on me".
Swanson was also credited with reversing a years-long ratings slide for WLS's newscasts, arriving at a newsroom he called a "circus". In his first months as manager, he made a slew of hires and anchor shuffles, bringing
Mike Adamle
Michael David Adamle (born October 4, 1949) is a former American football player and sports broadcaster.
Adamle was a sports anchor at other Chicago television stations, including WLS-TV from 1982 to 1989 before hosting '' American Gladiators'', ...
on board for sports and luring
Floyd Kalber
Floyd Kalber (December 23, 1924 – May 13, 2004) was an American television journalist and anchorman, nicknamed "The Big Tuna."
Life and career
Born in Omaha, Nebraska, he spent two years in the army during World War II and began his television ...
out of retirement and to the station, along with a group of new reporters and specialists.
By the end of Swanson's tenure, WLS was on a noted upswing in news ratings, and Winfrey and the new King World shows ''
Wheel of Fortune The Wheel of Fortune or ''Rota Fortunae'' has been a concept and metaphor since ancient times referring to the capricious nature of Fate. Wheel of Fortune may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Art
* ''The Wheel of Fortune'' (Burne-Jo ...
'' and ''
Jeopardy!
''Jeopardy!'' is an American game show created by Merv Griffin. The show is a quiz competition that reverses the traditional question-and-answer format of many quiz shows. Rather than being given questions, contestants are instead given genera ...
'' were also major coups for the station. Two years after Swanson departed, under his protégé Joe Ahern, WLS-TV was described as a "juggernaut" with dominating leads in all local news time slots.
Swanson was named president of the TV stations division of ABC in 1985.
In his year in this position, he paired
Regis Philbin
Regis Francis Xavier Philbin (; August 25, 1931 – July 25, 2020)Archived aGhostarchiveand thWayback Machine was an American television presenter, talk show host, game show host, comedian, actor, and singer. Once called "the hardest working ma ...
and
Kathie Lee Gifford
Kathryn Lee Gifford (née Epstein; born August 16, 1953) is an American television presenter, singer, songwriter, actress and author. From 1985 to 2000, she and Regis Philbin hosted the talk show ''Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee''. Gifford is a ...
as host of
WABC-TV
WABC-TV (channel 7) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the ABC network. Owned and operated by the network's ABC Owned Television Stations division, the station maintains studios in the Lincoln Square neighbor ...
's ''The Morning Show'', which became
''Live with Regis and Kathie Lee'' when it entered national syndication in 1988.
ABC Sports
In 1986, Swanson was tapped to succeed
Roone Arledge
Roone Pinckney Arledge Jr. (July 8, 1931 – December 5, 2002) was an American sports and news broadcasting executive who was president of ABC Sports from 1968 until 1986 and ABC News from 1977 until 1998, and a key part of the company's rise t ...
as president of
ABC Sports
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
; he would report to Arledge, who remained president of news and sports and would be the executive producer of ABC's coverage of the
1988 Winter Olympics
The 1988 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XV Olympic Winter Games (french: XVes Jeux olympiques d'hiver) and commonly known as Calgary 1988 ( bla, MohkÃnsstsisi 1988; sto, Wîchîspa Oyade 1988 or ; cr, Otôskwanihk 1998/; srs, Guts†...
.
Swanson entered with an immediate need to cut costs at a division that lost a reported $40 million in 1985, with much of that loss being attributed to rights fees;
many major sports contracts negotiated in prior years were written expecting higher inflation than actually occurred, causing ABC to have to absorb substantial losses.
Chet Forte
Fulvio Chester "Chet" Forte Jr. (August 7, 1935 – May 18, 1996) was an American television director and sports radio talk show host. He was also a standout college basketball player for Columbia and was the UPI Player of the Year in 1956–57. ...
went as far as to say that Swanson "performed a function" for
Capital Cities/ABC
Capital Cities/ABC Inc. was an American media company. It was founded in 1985 when Capital Cities Communications purchased the much larger American Broadcasting Company. It eventually proposed a merger of equals with The Walt Disney Company and ...
. He scrapped the three-man booth Arledge instituted for ''
Monday Night Football
''ESPN Monday Night Football'' (abbreviated as ''MNF'' and also known as ''ESPN Monday Night Football on ABC'' for simulcasts) is an American live television broadcast of weekly National Football League (NFL) games currently airing on ESPN, AB ...
'', naming
Al Michaels
Alan Richard Michaels (born November 12, 1944) is an American television sportscaster currently working as the play-by-play announcer for ''Thursday Night Football'' on Prime Video and in an emeritus role for NBC Sports. He has worked on netwo ...
as the play-by-play voice. He also secured rights to the
Belmont Stakes
The Belmont Stakes is an American Grade I stakes race for three-year-old Thoroughbreds run at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York. It is run over 1.5 miles (2,400 m). Colts and geldings carry a weight of ; fillies carry . The race, nicknamed Th ...
, giving ABC rights to the full
Triple Crown
Triple Crown may refer to:
Sports Horse racing
* Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing
* Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing (United States)
** Triple Crown Trophy
** Triple Crown Productions
* Canadian Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing
* Trip ...
, plus signed
Jack Nicklaus
Jack William Nicklaus (born January 21, 1940), nicknamed The Golden Bear, is a retired American professional golfer and List of golf courses designed by Jack Nicklaus, golf course designer. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest go ...
as a golf commentator and brought
Brent Musburger to the network after his high-profile firing from CBS in 1990.
One of Swanson's most enduring ideas in sports would not even air on ABC. At a breakfast with
Juan Antonio Samaranch
Juan Antonio Samaranch y Torelló, 1st Marquess of Samaranch (Catalan: ''Joan Antoni Samaranch i Torelló'', ; 17 July 1920 – 21 April 2010) was a Spanish sports administrator under the Franco regime (1973–1977) who served as the seventh Pre ...
, the president of the
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
, Swanson suggested that the IOC stagger the Summer and Winter Olympics, which at that time ran in the same year. The main reason was money, as advertisers were likely to spend less if they were hit for an Olympics twice in a year. The change would require a Winter Olympics just two years after the last, but the idea was quickly accepted by the IOC's executive committee and then its membership.
In December 1990, Swanson added oversight of the daytime and children's divisions of ABC Entertainment. He relinquished these additional responsibilities in 1993 to focus on the sports division.
Later in his tenure with the network, Swanson met a man who would later become one of his closest friends:
Dick Ebersol
Duncan "Dick" Ebersol (; born July 28, 1947) is an American television executive and a senior adviser for NBC Universal Sports & Olympics. He had previously been the chairman of NBC Sports, producing large-scale television events such as the O ...
, his counterpart at
NBC Sports
NBC Sports is an American programming division of the broadcast network NBC, owned and operated by NBC Sports Group division of NBCUniversal and subsidiary of Comcast. The division is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its d ...
. In 1993, the two were attending a
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and p ...
game when they came up with the idea that led to
The Baseball Network
The Baseball Network was an American short-lived television broadcasting joint venture between ABC, NBC and Major League Baseball (MLB). Under the arrangement, beginning in the 1994 season, the league produced its own in-house which were the ...
, the two-network arrangement of
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
telecasts that ultimately was doomed by the
strike
Strike may refer to:
People
* Strike (surname)
Physical confrontation or removal
*Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm
*Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...
that cut the 1994 MLB season short. In his last months at ABC Sports, Swanson set up meetings that helped lead to the creation of the
Bowl Championship Series
The Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was a selection system that created four or five bowl game match-ups involving eight or ten of the top ranked teams in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of American college football, including ...
of college football.
WNBC
In 1995,
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
acquired ABC, 80 percent owner of ESPN, and a major restructuring of ABC Sports followed in which Swanson retired; he opted to leave knowing that a merged ABC Sports and ESPN did not need two presidents. On Ebersol's recommendation, he returned to the stations business as general manager of
WNBC
WNBC (channel 4) is a television station in New York City, serving as the flagship of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Linden, New Jersey–licensed Telemundo station WN ...
, the NBC-owned station in New York City. Swanson fortified WNBC's news standing. In 1999, it claimed ratings victories for its newscasts at 6 a.m. and 5, 6, and 11 pm, which it had not done in one period since 1988; Swanson credited the acquisition of ''
Judge Judy
''Judge Judy'' is an American Court show#Arbitration-based reality court show, arbitration-based reality court show presided over by former Manhattan Family Court Judge Judy Sheindlin, Judith Sheindlin. The show featured Sheindlin as she adjudi ...
'' with boosting early evening ratings. WNBC also rose to number one in revenue in the nation's largest media market, billing $300 million a year. Swanson led the station through its coverage of the
September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
, for which ''
Broadcasting & Cable
''Broadcasting & Cable'' (or ''Broadcasting+Cable'') is a weekly telecommunications industry trade magazine published by Future US. Previous names included ''Broadcasting-Telecasting'', ''Broadcasting and Broadcast Advertising'', and ''Broadcast ...
'' honored Swanson as "Broadcaster of the Year" in 2002.
Swanson's invitation for syndicators to attend led to the lighting of the
Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree being broadcast nationally for the first time in 1997. WNBC also increased its local coverage of such events as the
Puerto Rican Day Parade
The Puerto Rican Day Parade (also known as the National Puerto Rican Day Parade) takes place annually in the United States along Fifth Avenue in the Manhattan borough of New York City. The parade is held on the second Sunday in June, in honor o ...
,
St. Patrick's Day Parade and
Columbus Day
Columbus Day is a national holiday in many countries of the Americas and elsewhere, and a federal holiday in the United States, which officially celebrates the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492.
...
Parade. In addition to running WNBC, NBC named Swanson the president of its Olympics division in 1998, with the charge of planning coverage of the Games beginning in 2000.
CBS
After leaving WNBC in 2002,
Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to:
* Viacom (1952–2006), a former American media conglomerate
* Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom
* Viacom18, a joint venture between Par ...
hired Swanson to be the chief operating officer of its group of
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
and
UPN
The United Paramount Network (UPN) was an American broadcast television network that launched on January 16, 1995. It was originally owned by Chris-Craft Industries' United Television. Viacom (through its Paramount Television unit, which pr ...
stations. This was a tough turnaround task, as the major-market CBS stations were running no better than third in revenue in their markets; most ranked fourth or fifth. The move upset NBC executives who thought he had retired for good; Swanson cited the increased value in Viacom's stock options as one of the key reasons he moved, though he had previously stated he would retire at 65. Under Swanson, many of the CBS stations received new general managers, a number of them Swanson's former colleagues at NBC and ABC; performance improved in Miami and San Francisco, though not all stations benefited, and the group for the most part still trailed in news ratings.
Fox
After Swanson was passed over for the position of head of the CBS stations group, he left in 2005 and joined the
Fox Television Stations
Fox Television Stations, LLC (FTS; alternately Fox Television Stations Group, LLC), is a group of television stations located within the United States, which are owned-and-operated by the Fox Broadcasting Company, a subsidiary of the Fox Corp ...
group, reporting to Jack Abernethy. With this posting, he had now worked in the station groups of all four major networks.
The Fox stations generally rated well in the morning but failed to hold onto viewers for late local news despite successful prime time fare from the network.
While at Fox,
NATPE
The National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) is a professional association of television and emerging media executives. The organization was established in 1963.
NATPE implements its mission by providing members with educati ...
honored Swanson with a
Brandon Tartikoff
Brandon Tartikoff (January 13, 1949 – August 27, 1997) was an American television executive who was the president of NBC from 1981 to 1991. He was credited with turning around NBC's low prime time reputation with such hit series as ''Hill Stre ...
Legacy Award.
In 2016, Swanson retired from the Fox Television Stations group.
Personal life
While at the University of Illinois, Dennis met his wife, Kathy Swanson.
Dennis and Kathy had three children and nine grandchildren and live in Connecticut.
In 2019, Dennis and Kathy Swanson donated $1 million toward the renovation of the basketball complex at Illinois.
References
{{Authority control
1938 births
Living people
American television executives
Peabody Award winners
Presidents of ABC Sports
American Broadcasting Company executives
Fox Broadcasting Company executives
CBS executives
NBC executives
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni